One question, asked everywhere.
One question, put to people on their own streets and answered on camera, in as many places as the network reaches. The point is not the footage. It is that somebody in Lagos and somebody in Philadelphia end up holding the same question, and can hear how the other one answered it.
Updated 1 September 2026 | Week 01 of 10 | 0 0 interviews published
If you could ask people around the world one question, what would you ask them?
“Now answer it yourself.”
Every question we collect leaves with the first answer already attached to it, given by the person who asked it.
The same question, in as many places as we can reach.
Most reporting picks a place, goes there, and asks whatever the story needs. One Question fixes the question first, then puts it to people on their own streets in as many places as the network reaches, in the same week. What comes back is not one story from one city. It is the same question answered in Lagos and Nairobi and Philadelphia at once.
The question we ask is a question about questions, which is the part that makes it work. Nobody has to know anything about us, or about crypto, or about journalism, to answer it. They only have to have wondered something about somebody else.
Then we ask them to answer their own question, on camera, before they go. That is not a bonus clip, it is the point. You cannot ask the world something you are not willing to answer yourself, and asking for it in the same breath means nobody gets to pose a question they have not thought about. It also means every question enters the archive with an answer already on it rather than hanging there empty.
So each interview produces two things: a question worth putting to strangers, and the first answer to it. What we end up holding is not a set of opinions. It is a map of what people want to know about each other, with each person’s own attempt attached.
It runs continuously rather than campaign by campaign. It grew out of #QueryTheWorld, which is now the hashtag we file under rather than a separate programme. Every interview is approved by Kafani before it goes up.
Every call recruits the next week’s askers.
The Weekly Connect is not a status meeting. It is where the next round of interviews gets commissioned, out loud, from the people who showed up. That is the engine, and it is the reason the call happens every week rather than when there is news.
- 1The week’s interviews go live and land in the catalogue below.
- 2Wednesday, on the call, that batch gets played. People watching react to it in real time and the feedback goes back to whoever filmed it.
- 3Attendees are asked to go out and ask the question themselves. Not eventually. That week, on their own street, with whatever camera they have.
- 4Kafani writes down who said yes and follows up. A commitment made on a call and never mentioned again is not a commitment, so this part is somebody’s actual job rather than a hope.
- 5What they bring back plays on the next call, in front of the people who will be asked next. Then it goes again.
- 6The questions themselves become the next thing we carry. A question collected on a street in Lagos is a question we can put to somebody in Philadelphia, with the Lagos answer already sitting next to it. That is the whole idea: a question travels further than an answer does, and it arrives somewhere new already carrying a piece of where it came from.
If it works, the number of people asking grows every week without anyone being hired, because the call is doing the recruiting. If it does not, the catalogue below will show it plainly, which is why the catalogue is on the same page.
Milestones, week by week.
The first campaign opens on the Connect of Wednesday 9 September and closes on the Connect of Wednesday 4 November. Nine weeks. Each week closes on The Weekly Connect that Wednesday, where that week’s interviews get played.
interviews in, from as many countries as the network reaches.
Twenty were in before week one opened. The pace ramps rather than holding flat, because this is a community number rather than a staff one: it goes up as more people join in. That is what the Weekly Connect is for, and it is why One Question is the thing we ask people to do rather than the thing we explain.
Manual count · kept by Kafani · updated here every Friday
- W01 7 Sep to 11 Sep Connect Wed 9 Sep The first Weekly Connect, and this page live.
- W02 14 Sep to 18 Sep Connect Wed 16 Sep 20 interviews in.
- W03 21 Sep to 25 Sep Connect Wed 23 Sep 40 interviews in. Arikia joins to review the first real batch with us.
- W04 28 Sep to 2 Oct Connect Wed 30 Sep 60 interviews in.
- W05 5 Oct to 9 Oct Connect Wed 7 Oct 80 interviews in. Arikia joins again at the halfway mark.
- W06 12 Oct to 16 Oct Connect Wed 14 Oct 100 interviews in.
- W07 19 Oct to 23 Oct Connect Wed 21 Oct 120 interviews in. Arikia joins for the last notes that can still change what gets filmed.
- W08 26 Oct to 30 Oct Connect Wed 28 Oct 150 interviews in. The target, met a week before the close.
- W09 2 Nov to 4 Nov Connect Wed 4 Nov · final Everything in by 3pm on Friday 6 November, then a celebration livestream over the weekend. Arikia joins to look back at the whole archive.
Cumulative rather than weekly: 20 by the third Connect, 150 by the eighth. The last week is for getting everything in rather than shooting more, with the deadline at 3pm on Friday 6 November and a celebration livestream over that weekend.
Every Wednesday, on the record.
The One Question Weekly Connect is the programme happening out loud. Noon in New York, 5pm in Lagos, 7pm in Nairobi, 16:00 UTC, and we hold ninety minutes for it. It is the community call we ran last year, on the same Discord event, with a programme attached to it. It is not a status meeting and you do not need to have filmed anything to come. Most people who end up filming started out watching.
Every one plays tape. Some of it is what the community brought back that week, and some of it comes out of five years of archive, because a street interview shot in 2023 is still a street interview and the conversation it starts is still worth having. We react to it together, give each other feedback, and cover the rest of what We Them Media has running.
These are live streams rather than a produced show. It is a community townhall as much as a programme call: supporters, contributors, people in the Discord, people who only read the newsletter. Same room. Turn up, watch, say something.
If you came to a community call last year, this is that room. Nothing about it is starting from scratch. What is new is that there is now a programme running through it and a reason to bring something back each week.
The conversation happens first and the community round comes after it, on purpose. Turning up to a call and being asked to introduce yourself before you know what the thing is puts the work on the wrong person. Watch first. Get oriented. Say something when you have something to say.
Every one of these gets recorded and published. We are back to building in public, which means the thinking happens on the call rather than in a document nobody sees.
Noon to half past one, New York time. Ninety minutes is the window we hold rather than a runtime we have to fill, so if the room runs out at the hour we will finish at the hour. Tentative, and likely to change before the day: the order may move and things may get added, so treat this as what we are planning rather than a promise.
- 1Welcome. Who is on the call and where from. Quick.
- 2The conversation. Kafani and Maceo on street interviews: what makes a good one, what you actually say to a stranger in the first five seconds, and where One Question goes from here. Tape gets played inside it. You can just watch this part.
- 3Open floor. Your questions, now that you know what this is. Nothing is off the table.
- 4The community round. What people brought back this week, feedback on it, and what everyone else has running.
- 5Go and shoot one. What we are asking for this week and how to send it in.
- Weekly Connect 1 The first one. What this is, who is here, and the first tape off the pile. RSVP on Discord. Wed 9 Sep
Every interview, as it lands.
Each approved interview is added here as it publishes, newest first, with who filmed it and where. This is the running record of what the question actually produced.
The first eight are due live on YouTube by Wednesday 2 September. They appear here as they go up.
How an interview gets here.
- Anyone in the network can film one. You do not need a title or a camera crew. A phone, a street, and someone willing to answer.
- Always get both halves. Their question, then their own answer to it. An interview without the second half is half an interview, and Kafani will send it back.
- Kafani approves everything. One editorial standard across every country, which is the only way an archive like this stays worth reading.
- Post it to X and tag @WeThemMediaHQ. That is the whole submission process and it works whenever you filmed it, from wherever you are. We pick it up from there, Kafani reviews it, and it goes on our YouTube with your name and your city on it. Tagging us is how you say yes to that; if you would rather it stayed on your own account, say so in the post and we will leave it there and point people to you.
- Or bring it to the Wednesday call. Turn up to The Weekly Connect, say you will ask the question this week, and Kafani will follow up with you. The call is the easiest place to start if you have not done one before, but it is not the only door.
- Some are commissioned. Where a specific question needs chasing we post it on poidh and whoever brings the answer back gets paid. That is a mechanism, not the reason to take part.
The person you’ll actually be talking to.
Kafani is the One Question Community Steward. She takes the names on the Wednesday call, follows up with the people who said yes, and approves every interview before it goes up. If you want to ask something, or you have filmed something and do not know what to do with it, she is who you are looking for. Here she is, so you know who that is before you say anything.
Ninety seconds, filmed on your phone.
Kafani, this is the last thing this page needs. Not an interview and not a shoot. You, your phone, one take, about a minute. It sits where people decide whether to take part, so it is doing one job: making you a person they would message rather than a name on a site.
Four things, in this order. Say them however they come out. If you fluff a line, keep going rather than starting again. The unpolished version is the one people believe.
“I’m Kafani, the One Question Community Steward, and I’m filming this in…”
Name, title, and where you actually are right then. Say the title, because it is what tells somebody you are the person to bring things to. Then the place, which matters just as much: the whole premise of this is somebody standing somewhere specific and talking to whoever is there.
“My vision for One Question is…”
What you think it is for and where you want it to go. If what you say and what this page says are different, the page changes, not your answer.
“Here is what I have learned doing street interviews…”
One thing you would tell somebody about to walk up to a stranger for the first time. Somebody deciding this week whether they can do it wants to hear that from a person who already has, not from a website.
“Come to our weekly call. Wednesdays, five o’clock Nigerian time.”
Say the time the way you would say it to somebody standing next to you in Lagos. Five o’clock your time, not noon somebody else’s. Most of the people who will watch this are closer to you than to New York, and a person saying a time in their own timezone is an invitation while a table of timezones is a schedule. Then say the part that matters most: they do not need to have filmed anything to come, and they can just watch. Then the one line that turns a viewer into a contributor: film one where you are, post it to X, tag us. Say it last so it is the thing people are still holding when the video ends.
Two practical notes. Shoot it landscape, and find a wall or a street rather than a ceiling. Do not script it: the looser it is the better it works.
Once it is up, this block of instructions comes off the page and your video takes its place.
Wednesdays. The call is the whole thing: that week’s interviews get played, people react to them out loud, and the next round gets asked for in the room. You do not need to have filmed anything to turn up. Come on whichever of these you already use.
Watch it fill up as it happens.
The interviews go up as they are approved rather than in a batch at the end, so the fastest way to follow this is wherever you already are.
We post seven days a week across all of them. Free to watch, no ads, no paywall.